Gaziantep Üniversitesi Ayıntab Araştırmaları Dergisi

Öz

The
city of Gaziantep is the largest in the Southeastern Anatolia region and the
sixth largest city in Turkey with its metropolitan status accompanied by its
current population, economic state, potential for tourism and administrative system. Gaziantep, which provides a basis
for the development of the region with its industry and volume of commercial
activities, also exerts an influence on the neighbouring provinces of different
sizes by means of its economy. The development of economic cooperation with
countries from the Middle East in connection with political circumstances can
be cited among the advantages stemming from the geographical location of the
city. Gaziantep nearly doubled Turkey's average growth rate (9%), by achieving an economic growth of 16.6% in 2010. This
trend has influenced the city deeply and it has turned into one of the fastest
growing cities in Turkey. Furthermore, Gaziantep hosts around 400,000 asylum
seekers as a result of the Syrian civil war. The rapid growth of the
settlements has accelerated the spatial development of the city considerably. Indeed, while the total area of ​​the city
prior to the Ottoman period was around 0.75 square kilometres, it spread over
an area of ​​about 6 square kilometres during 400 years of the Ottoman rule.
The city, which performed a slower development in the period between the
establishment of the Republic and 1975, started to grow rapidly in the 1980s
and expanded into 60 square kilometres at present. In order to examine the
spatial development of the city, Somuncu’s (1995) “Spatial Development Method”
for the city of Kayseri as well as Ayhan and Çubukçu’s method, which was used
for the spatial development of the city of İzmir have been employed. Besides,
“The Remote Sensing Method has been utilised for the spatial development of
Gaziantep between 1975-2018.